Rolling Stones

When I came of age, musically, in the mid-’70s, it was the exact wrong moment to become a Rolling Stones fan.

Having just missed what even then was acknowledged as their golden period — the four-year stretch from ’68’s Beggars Banquet to ’72’s Exile on Main Street — I was pumped with anticipation as I rode the bus to Sam The Record Man to snag the group’s first studio recording since the departure of guitarist Mick Taylor.

It was the spring of ’76 and, after feasting on a string of appealingly gritty rockers like Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women and Jumpin’ Jack Flash, I tore the shrink wrap off Black and Blue, the first Stones album for my own post-’60s generation, slapped it on my turntable and — what can I say? — the stench lingers still.

Half-baked jams like Hot Stuff, Hey Negrita and Melody reeked of a band without purpose, unsure of its next move. The lone hit, the falsetto-tinged Fool to Cry, was enough to make me weep over the $4.99 I’d forked out in my foolish attempt to keep the dream alive.

It was to be the first of many disappointments from the self-proclaimed “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band,” whose music went from defining pop culture to being mercilessly buffeted by its whims and fancies in what seemed the blink of an eye.

Somehow, these surly British rebels who had come to fame as a defiant counterpoint to the mop-topped Beatles had turned into decadent rock stars so immersed in drugs and money they lost touch with the pulsing blues rhythms that made them famous.

You want disco? The Stones had Miss You. You want reggae? They had Luxury. You want ’80s synth-pop tinged with new wave? They had Undercover of the Night.

Sure, they would go on to put out competent, well-received albums like Some Girls and Tattoo You — just enough to keep fans like me hanging on — but they would never again reach the heights that made them a generational touchstone.

Still, they were The Stones, man, part of the ’60s triptych that included The Beatles and The Who, a potent force in music history. And, unlike those two bands, they stayed intact.

All of which is a long-winded way of addressing the 50th anniversary concerts this month and last in London and New York, and the column I had intended to write about how The Stones have become a nostalgia-primped jukebox: crass, calculating, all about the money.

Break up already, I was primed to instruct. You’re celebrating 50 years of underdog, middle-finger-to-The Man hits and charging up to $600 a ticket? Trust me, in this case, time is not on your side.

But here’s what I learned when I clicked on YouTube clips of their inaugural comeback concert earlier this week:

(1) You don’t stay famous for 50 years by accident.

(2) You don’t sell out massive arenas like London’s O2 unless you’ve got something people still want to see.

It’s true. While The Stones may have grown lazy and uninspired after five decades of rock star opulence, that thing that defined them in their heyday — that made songs like Midnight Rambler and Gimme Shelter fearsome antidotes to the cloying niceties of peace and love — was still, in some way, intact.

“Please allow me to introduce myself,” snarled Jagger on a particularly nasty version of Sympathy for the Devil. “I’m a man of wealth and taste.”

So now I’m confused. Is this about money? The Music? Or simply defying their critics? As is usually the case with The Stones, there’s no simple answer.

“I haven’t been doing this to become some sort of historical, archival figure,” Jagger pointed out in an ’87 interview with Q Magazine.

“That’s not what it’s for. The reason you do it is for a laugh, that’s all.”

But even then — come on — The Rolling Stones were too big to do anything for a laugh. Trying to keep things light and edgy when you’re playing packed stadiums is like trying to drag race in a minivan.

And yet, there are moments in that O2 show — with Keith Richards bearing down on his guitar, Jagger gliding across the stage with almost feral intensity — when they appear to be playing, as more than one critic has noted, as if their lives depend on it.

“They fought hard to earn the moniker ‘World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band,’ ” notes Glenn Pelletier, the 570 News anchor who moonlights in a Stones cover band. “They instinctively soldier on to the detriment of anyone who gets in their way.”

Or can it be that, after years of denial, they suddenly care about their legacy?

“No one should care if The Rolling Stones have broken up, should they?” Jagger asked in ’87, even then feeling the weight of history.

“But with me, people seem to demand that I keep their youthful memories intact in a glass case specifically preserved for them and damn the sacrifices I have to make. ‘Oh, The Stones, it’s part of my youth, man,’ they say, because they saw you in Hyde Park 18 years ago. ... not that they’ve bought a record of yours in 15 years.”

It’s a love-hate relationship. We want you, but we resent you. If you break up, we’ll die, our youthful memories crushed. But if you stay together, and have the audacity to grow older, we’ll blast you.

“It’s very funny,” insisted the rail-thin vocalist, whose place in pop culture was reconfirmed last year with the Maroon 5 hit Moves Like Jagger.

“Because while you’re around and in no danger of extinction, everyone’s ready to kick you and say, ‘Well, why don’t you break up? Your band is really pointless, just doing the same thing over and over and over, so why don’t you just f--- off and die?’

“And then, when you’re in danger of extinction, they all go, ‘What’s the matter, man? You should reform, man. I mean, it’s The Rolling Stones, maaaan.’ ”

It’s the same dilemma faced by other so-called “heritage acts” like The Beach Boys and The Who, who made a massive mark in the ’60s, wilfully compromised their street cred and now seem determined — as band members push 70 and history beckons — to go for broke.

These 50th anniversary concerts from a band that happily sold out when it proved convenient may not be the Second Coming hardcore fans have longed for. But to quote a famous Stones song, they may, in some small way, be exactly what we need.